Category Archives: Mindfulness

Depression, Discovery, Dreaming, Growth, Healing, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Writing

The Here & Now

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As you’re well aware by now, I am in a perpetual holding pattern with no end in sight. I’m not going to get into it too much though because I’ve already talked about it at length. I don’t really have much more to say about it. There’s just simply nothing within my power that is guaranteed to change that. All I can do at this point is hope & pray. Until the right opportunity comes my way, this is how life is going to be. I can either be upset by it or accept it.

In the past, that’s something that’s discouraged me majorly. It’s caused me to lose focus, caused me to look ahead or look behind. Instead of focusing on my day-to-day and the here & now I would fantasize about the future or dwell on the mistakes of the past. Dreaming and reflecting are fine in moderation but overuse of either will only serve as distractions, taking away from what you can do to make each day better. Which is what should be the main focus. The present is the one thing that you have any amount of control over so should be what matters most. The past can’t be changed, and the future is unpredictable. These are both indisputable facts of life, as much as we try to act otherwise at times. 

Intuitively I’ve known this, but it’s become easy for me to lose sight of. I’m not as healthy mentally as I was three years ago. That’s a fact that I’m not afraid to admit. Some people may see this as weakness, but at the end of the day, you have to be honest and realistic with yourself. You’re doing yourself a disservice otherwise. Obviously, admitting fault, acknowledging your weaknesses, and/or taking the blame will probably make you look bad, which is why most people don’t like to do it. So doing it takes a lot of guts. It takes strength to point the finger at yourself and say, “maybe there were a few things I could’ve done better” or, “maybe there was a better way.” When it comes down to it, all we’re looking for is answers and solutions. The best way to find those is to keep an even keel. Balance, in other words… The key word for 2025 (and beyond). You don’t want to be too lenient on yourself, but at the same time you don’t want to be too harsh. You want to give yourself the proper amount of credit when it’s due, and also accept the proper amount of blame when necessary. Be wary. It’s easy to go too far to either side if you’re not careful.

Too much lenience may lead to justification of bad behavior, missed opportunities for growth, not taking the proper steps to improve, etc. Too much harshness may lead to lost confidence, increased self-loathing, and unfair self-criticism amongst other things. These things are equally damaging but manifest in different ways, and are to be avoided. These things end up being detrimental to your success. I don’t think I have to tell you that this is not what you want. You’re trying to be kind to your future self. In order to do that, you need to be setting yourself up for success, not doing things that get in the way of that. We’re on a quest for sustained excellence. In order to achieve that, you need to be constantly making micro adjustments. Good enough isn’t good enough. You cannot continue on an upwards trajectory if you remain stagnant. But again, this requires balance. Being stagnant is not always a bad thing, as long as it’s a temporary state of being—you cannot allow yourself to become stagnant forever. At some point you will need to continue on. Be grateful for all the steps you’ve taken to get to where you are, but also know that the journey isn’t over yet. Be comfortable with where you are in life, but also accept that things could also be better. If you keep both of these things in mind you allow yourself to have a proper appreciation for the day to day, while also striving for the best future possible. 

For me, one of the things that I’m always in search of is self-improvement. I’m trying to be a better version of myself each and every day. Some days are easier than others, but this is what I try to have my eye set on. It helps me stay focused, and keeps me pointed in the right direction. The best way to move onwards and upwards is to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time, to keep looking forward. Your mileage may vary. Self-improvement doesn’t look the same for every person, and it doesn’t look the same every day. It could be gaining new knowledge, seeking out different experiences, trying out different hobbies, acquiring a skill, or honing a talent. It doesn’t really matter what it is (or how big or small), but it must be top of mind for you. In order for your circumstances to change or improve, you must be intentional about it. You must be open-minded. You must be willing to try things a different way if your way isn’t working. You must have the determination to continue grinding even when things get tough. Your circumstances won’t get better if you’re not putting in the effort. 

But unfortunately for us, growth and development isn’t always linear. Sometimes we need to make mistakes in order to learn our lesson(s). Other times, it could feel like you’re taking one step forwards, and two steps back. Occasionally, life blesses us with good fortune and we’re able to move forward without much adversity. This is obviously the ideal that we hope for, but it’s a bit of a rarity. It just isn’t always that easy. Life is tough and full of speed bumps and strange turns—that’s just how it is. Things aren’t always going to play out the way that you think they will. You need to be prepared for the possibility that things might not work out. You will need to learn how to temper your expectations so that you don’t keep setting yourself up for disappointment. Easier said than done, of course. But it’ll go a long way in keeping your confidence high. Which is an important element when it comes to growth. I can probably speak for most people when I say that things are much easier to cope with when my confidence is high. The disappointment doesn’t hit as hard. It’s not as easy to get discouraged. The self-doubts aren’t as loud. I’m able to put my head down and grind. I’m better able to keep my emotions in check—not get too high or too low. I feel like I’m more in control when my confidence is high.

One of the bigger problems for me is finding ways to keep that meter mostly full. Something that’s always been tough for me. Growing up as a shy and introverted kid, confidence usually came at a premium. And while this did eventually improve slightly in some areas, it remained a concern in many others. For the most part, if I was comfortable in a certain situation, the confidence wasn’t an issue. But if I wasn’t comfortable… Yeah, you get the picture. This remained mostly true until I started going to therapy. Learning how to be gentler on myself went a long way towards fixing that. That being said, confidence has not generally been a strong suit of mine. In hindsight, pursuit of an artistic endeavor was probably not the brightest idea then, seeing as how delayed gratification is very much the expected reward, which does not help with building confidence. But it was not something that could be helped. There was a story inside of me that was waiting to be written. The biggest regret would’ve been waiting so long that I never got around to writing it.

But now that I’m in the thick of writing it, the going has been slower than I anticipated. As I said earlier, things don’t always play out the way that you expect. This is proof of that. But I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning (which has been true for about a year), so I really have no choice but to finish it. That hasn’t been an area of doubt for me in a long time. I’m going to finish this project no matter what it takes. But how much will it drain me by the time I get to the end? Unfortunately, in the world of art, until you have a completed project you won’t have anything to show the world, hence the delayed gratification. You very much need to take a process-oriented approach over a results-oriented one. Taking the latter opens you up to a lot of disappointment, especially if progress is slow. You therefore should stake your confidence in something aside from mere results. 

Finding what to stake it on is an answer that I have not yet come up with. I used to be focused on improving the quality of my writing. While that was a rather intangible goal, I was eventually able to achieve it. Seeing my writing slowly improve was something that kept me motivated and confident. It kept me moving forward and kept me focused. But what came after? For a while that wasn’t something that I had really thought about. Which is something that I regret. The thing about goal-setting is that it never ends. Once you reach a goal you need to set another one. That’s the only way you’ll get to where you want to go. But at the same time, you can’t just set goals for the sake of setting them. The goals that you set need to be realistic enough for you to achieve, and challenging enough that they push you towards greatness. They can’t be too easy but they also can’t be too hard. Too easy and you’ll be tempted to move the goal posts before you’re ready. Too hard and you might find that you’re feeling discouraged. It’s a delicate process that you don’t want to mess up.

Fortunately, even if you do mess up things are fixable. It’s just a matter of if you have the time and the patience to fix it. Sometimes you’re able to catch the mistake before it’s too late. But more often than not you find yourself wandering down a path that you maybe shouldn’t have wandered down. That’s kinda where I find myself now. When I quit my job I wasn’t quite honest with myself about my expectations for where my writing would take me. I took a leap that I probably shouldn’t have taken (not without a backup plan at least). But of course, hindsight is 20/20. I didn’t know how things would turn out. And if I hadn’t exited the workforce, would my writing have improved to where it needs to be? I have my doubts. That being said, I needed that time off. I needed time and focus spent solely on my craft. So on the one hand, I do not regret taking some time off to focus on my writing. But I just wish I had been more realistic with my goals and expectations. I needed to have some sort of plan to transition back into the workforce after a certain amount of time had elapsed. That would’ve saved me a lot of heartache. 

But it is what it is. Mistakes were made, and I have to suffer the consequences of my actions. All I can do is focus on the here & now. Focus on what I can do to make each day a little bit better. Unfortunately I can’t just change things with a snap. Everything takes time, so it’s imperative that I find one last ounce of patience. I need to continue working on the novel, and continue sending out job applications. Those are the only two things within my control at the moment. No use crying about it cause that won’t change anything. I just have to make the most of what I’m able to do. And then we wait, and hope for my big break. The right opportunity for me is out there somewhere, I believe that. I just have to stay patient. I’ll be ready for it when it comes. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later. 

Depression, Doubt, Existentialism, Healing, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Questions, Wellness, Writing

Still Waiting

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Life has not gone the way that I expected. How often have you seen me say that of late? But what do you want me to say? Would you rather I say that things are fine? That everything is up to snuff? I know for a fact that neither of those things is true—I’d be delusional to think otherwise. I can be and need to be doing more with my life. I’m capable of much much more. Where I’m at right now is not where I’m meant to be. I’ve been called to a higher purpose, I’m quite confident in that. There’s so much untapped potential within me that’s being wasted at the moment. So why haven’t I made any meaningful changes yet?

It’s just not that simple… The opportunities have been tough to come by. Something that’s been true for my entire life. When I was a teenager, I used to see this as “proof” that God hated me or that the universe wanted to see me fail. But that was just an excuse that oversimplified things. The truth is, that was just a defense mechanism that provided me with an easy way out, allowing me to shuck responsibility, avoid taking accountability, and pin the blame on someone or something other than myself. If I accepted that statement as truth then the implication was that no matter what I did I would never be good enough. Damn… That’s a rather fatalistic judgment for a seventeen-year-old to be making. How did I know with that much certainty that my life would amount to nothing? My life hadn’t even started yet and I’d already given up.

It’s kinda no wonder then that the first quarter century of my life ended up playing out the way that it did. How can you expect to find success if you have zero self-belief? But at the same time, how do you gain self-belief if you don’t have success to point back to? Obviously that circular argument is overly simplistic and rather short-sighted. There’s much more to it than just those two things. Yes you probably need to have self-belief to find success, but you don’t necessarily need success to find self-belief. Confidence can be found any number of ways, from any number of places. But my mental fortitude in my teenage years was minimal or non-existent. In my underdeveloped brain there were only two ways to gain confidence: externally or internally. The former came from praise and affirmation for academic or personal achievements. The latter I saw as drive and ambition that was inherent in some individuals but not in others. For a long time, I believed I had neither of those things. That being said, whatever confidence I started out with dissipated over time and I didn’t have a meaningful way of regaining it. Little did I know that all I was doing was setting myself up for failure. 

If I didn’t have confidence, and I couldn’t gain it, then what exactly was the point? Clearly there was a flaw in the logic. But I was incapable of thinking in non-black & -white terms back then. Either I had confidence or I didn’t and there was no in between. Because of my small-minded point of view, my mind was left spinning around a conundrum that had plenty of answers, but they were ones I wasn’t able to see. Without any sort of ambition to work towards I felt directionless and lost. There was thus no easy way out of this vicious cycle (at least in my mind) because I’d already limited myself. I falsely believed that my fate had been decided. So if I was already destined to be a loser then I didn’t see much point in giving my full effort. Unbeknownst to me, I had fallen hook, line & sinker for the self-fulfilling prophecy. My fate hadn’t been determined yet—the world was still my oyster. My options were limitless, all I needed to do was work towards something, anything… But because I’d somehow convinced myself that I was a predestined failure, a flop, a dud, a nobody I ended up writing my own fate. And not in a good way. 

But that’s the thing. My so-called fate hadn’t been pre-determined at all. Nothing about my life was ever written in stone (it still isn’t). People can change. They can grow, improve, heal, get better, gain knowledge. Jobs and careers may come and go. Relationship dynamics can shift. Everyone has parts of their story that are yet to be written. I think as humans we choose to believe in fate because it helps explain why and how certain things come to pass. It helps us explain the unexplainable, but that’s just it. Not everything has an explanation, nor does it need to have one. There’s an infinite amount of knowledge out there, much more than what our finite brains can comprehend. As much as we want to know everything, it’s just not going to happen. But it doesn’t mean we stop trying to learn new things. It doesn’t mean we stop seeking out new experiences and opportunities. It doesn’t mean we stop striving for greatness. For someone with a healthy mindset, it should actually push us to do the opposite. Seeing how much we don’t know should actually motivate us to want to learn more. 

The keyword there is healthy. You need to get your mind right first. It’s non-negotiable. You will think so much clearer if your mental is on point, I can guarantee that. Once you start thinking in a healthier way it’ll be easier for you to make important decisions. Facing adversity won’t be as stressful. The future won’t feel as scary. It’ll allow you to put a plan in place to get you to where you want to go. It may or may not work, but it at least gives you something to work towards and adds some well-needed structure to your goal setting. Obviously, what healthiness entails is different for each individual. But it’s important just the same. Make your mental health your priority and soon things will fall in place. I wish I had understood the importance of this at an earlier age. But sometimes you have to go through some shit before you’re able to figure out what to do. “I didn’t walk through all that fire just to smell the smoke.” I believe that even if fate can be overstated sometimes, things still happen for a reason. 

I hold on tightly to that. Because the truth is, every experience is an opportunity to learn something new. Even if you’re able to find success, there may still be a more efficient way of doing things. Even if things didn’t quite work out the way you had hoped, you might still learn a few things about yourself. Don’t look at that as a failure, but rather see it as a setback. Just because things didn’t work out the one time, doesn’t mean that they’ll never work out. You’ll just need to adjust and try again. That’s how life goes. It’s a never-ending series of trial & error. You can’t rewind. You can’t go back to a previous save file and make a different decision—you only get one chance. You can’t take back the things you say or do. Life is not a video game. What you can do is learn from your mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others, use hindsight and reflection to guide your future decision making. Everything that happens in life can be used to help inform your future. That’s really what it’s all about: trying to set yourself up for success, trying to put your future self in the best position possible. 

As with most things, that’s easier said than done. In the social media age we’ve been conditioned to seek instant gratification. Obviously, getting immediate results and recognition makes us feel good, but it’s not the most realistic of expectations. Going viral or blowing up out of nowhere just doesn’t happen that often. You have like a one in a million chance. It’s something you can hope for, but it is not reliable enough to be the expectation. Using something that’s out of your control as an emotional support beam will only lead to disappointment if things don’t work out. It’s better to lean on something more stable—the things within your control, namely your effort and determination. That’s what it will come down to at the end of the day. The best things in life take time to create. Your favorite guitar player didn’t learn how to shred overnight. It took hours and hours of practice. Your favorite center fielder wasn’t able to track a deep ball right off the rip. It took years of practice for him to get good enough to play in the MLB. Whatever it is you want to do, you will need to work hard at it. That’s just a fact. 

But at the same time though, it’s much more complicated than that. Just because you work hard doesn’t necessarily mean that things will work out the way that you want. Life is random and sometimes shit happens. It could be the cards you’re dealt, it could be bad timing, or bad luck or what have you. Everyones situation is different, so there is no such thing as a guaranteed success or a guaranteed failure. What may work for one person might not work for another. There aren’t many things that are guaranteed in life. One thing’s for sure though, you will go through adversity, you will run into speed bumps, you will go through hardships in life. That’s just the truth. Life is hard. You’ll likely encounter moments of smooth sailing, but don’t get too comfortable, because there will also be rocky roads ahead. We won’t know ahead of time what type of adversity we’ll face, so we have to be prepared for anything. There’s a wide range of outcomes out there. How we handle the adversity says a lot about our character. 

But just because there will be adversity doesn’t mean that we stop dreaming or stop trying. We just have to learn how to adapt and pivot. We will have setbacks, but how will we deal with them? We have to keep pushing forward. Keep believing that the handwork will pay off. It won’t be immediate, it might not even be soon, but we have to maintain self-belief. Otherwise, what’s the point? Why did I spend all this time working on my craft? Why did I spend so many hours typing on my keyboard? Why did I spend months daydreaming, fantasizing, worldbuilding, and plotting the story I wanted to tell? My writing was the first major thing in life that gave me satisfaction and fulfillment, so I can’t just give up on it. Before this, I had spent 4.5 years double majoring: pursuing one field that I didn’t necessarily like and another that I didn’t think I could get a job in (without going to grad school). After that, I spent 8 years at companies that I didn’t fully buy into. No matter how good my grades were or how many hours I worked, it just did not give me purpose. Trust me I tried to find it, but something always felt like it was missing—they just did not satisfy.

It wasn’t until 2020, when I started writing consistently that I felt passion and spark in my life. I’d felt brief moments of it before—I had been blogging on & off for many years before that, and had found joy in small personal projects. But up til then, I had never really known what my purpose was. I struggled to find meaning in life. And the question in the back of my mind was always this: how do I fit in to society? What role do I play? I was and still am having an existential crisis. I want what I do to matter, maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but I want to at least make a positive impact on the people around me. Writing is the best way I know how. This is my purpose—I’ve finally found what I’m looking for. And having found it, I want to hold onto it for as long as I can. 

But it’s been four long years, without anything to show for it as of yet. The spark has faded since then, but hasn’t died. And I won’t let it. I will make something of this if it’s the last thing I do. What that looks like at the end of the day is yet to be known. Will I ever get traditionally published? Will my novel ever sell? I don’t know the answer to either of those yet, but it won’t be for lack of trying. What an agent or a publisher does is out of my control. And all of this speculation is in fact, looking too far forward. I still need to finish the manuscript first before anything. I know I’ve already been saying that for years—the writing is going way slower than I anticipated. But I need to rededicate myself to the process, because I don’t have anything else to hang my hat on at the moment. 

I admit that I made several mistakes along the way. There was faultiness in the expectations I set. There were delusions of grandeur. There were flaws in my thought process. But all of that is in the past. I’m aware of all that now, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. This stuff already happened. So all I can do is use these mistakes to inform my decision making moving forward. I’ve been trying my best to do that, but it’s tough for me to stay focused on the work and on the here & now. Because there’s so much else to worry about. It’s hard to prepare for my future given my financial situation. As I’ve said before, I waited too long to start my job search. Again, that’s a mistake that was made in the past that I’m trying to correct. 

All I can do is focus on the things I need to do and wait. Which gets harder by the week. While I am an extremely patient individual, and waiting is something I generally don’t mind doing, it’s starting to weigh on me. The longer I have to wait for the next opportunity, the easier it is for doubt to take hold. I’ve been trying my best to fight it, but it keeps coming back time after time. Every time I have a good month, it’s followed by a down period that may last days or weeks. And while I’ve been hoping for more stability in that regard, I don’t expect it to happen unless my circumstances change. I can’t give up, I won’t let my doubt win. But it’s become so hard…

I realize now that my writing career and my job search are two separate pursuits. Two equally important aspects of my life. But they both feed back into a singular tank of confidence. So when one takes a hit, they both take a hit. I’ve been letting that meter tick down for too long. Mentally, I’m not where I was at three years ago. I’m just not as resilient. I can build it back up, but something needs to change soon. I’m holding out hope though. I’m confident something will come my way. I just don’t know when, which is what fills me with anxiety. But I can’t focus on that because that will only lead to discouragement—a surefire way of leading me down an unhealthy path. The only way I can get through this is if I stay strong, keep pushing on. Keep working on the manuscript and keep looking for jobs.

I know what it looks like from the outside. I’m the guy who hasn’t earned a steady income in four years. Who hasn’t had a real job in that time. The guy who’s been living off his parents’ money. It’s easy to point to me and say, “What the fuck is wrong with that guy? Why is he so lazy? Why isn’t he working? Why is he just sitting around wasting time?” I’ve heard it before but I need to ignore the noise, even if it comes from people I thought were close. I guess that’s what hurts the most. Because you think certain people understand you and have compassion for you only to find out that you’re wrong. But they just don’t know the full story. They don’t know what’s going on in my mind. They don’t know how hard I’ve been working. They don’t know how many words I’ve written. How many job applications I’ve sent out. I just haven’t had any luck, and the right opportunity hasn’t come by. It doesn’t mean I’m sitting around on my ass, not doing anything. It doesn’t mean I’m a deadbeat or a loser. This situation is only temporary. Things will change at some point, only a matter of time. But until my job status changes I guess I’m just that guy. Just you wait though. I’ll rebound, I’ll come back, but for now I wait.

Doubt, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Poetry, Self-Care, Self-Love, Writing

Subpar

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It’s a constant struggle dealing with my feelings of inadequacy
It just seems that I’m never good enough
Time after time it’s a notion that comes back to me
Why can’t I ever be good enough?

I’ve set impossible standards for myself
Set the bar so high that I’m having trouble clearing it
But what’s the alternative?
I’ve gone through life before with no self-belief
I’ve gone through life before expecting failure

I always knew that was not a healthy way to live
But neither is this
I have to find some middle ground
I need to find some balance in my life
Do better than what I’ve done
But at the same time, I can’t keep beating myself up so much

I need to learn how to show myself some grace
Be kinder to the man in the mirror
But I just can’t help feeling that I’m not good enough
It feels like everything I do is subpar
Nothing I do is up to my exacting standard
But I swear I’ve been working so hard

So where do I go from here?
When will what I do be good enough (for me)?
Satisfaction and fulfillment seems few and far between
I’m looking for some direction in life
Some clarity on where to go and what to do

I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum
Worked hard for decent money but failed to find passion
Worked passionately for the love of it, but without getting paid
There has to be some middle ground

Why can’t I have both?
But maybe one things divides into two
Maybe I find what I’m looking for in a dual pursuit
Regardless of what it is, I gotta keep chipping away
I know that’s the truth

But it’s hard to keep on going when so far it hasn’t borne fruit
I just can’t help but feel that I’m not good enough
That everything I do is subpar
Self-belief will only get me so far
I can’t get my foot in the door if I’m not given a chance

I know I should be in a better place
But opportunity has been limited
I know I have skill and potential
I just haven’t been able to show it in a while

The longer this goes on, the harder it is to silence my doubt
I pray something comes together
Cause I dunno how much more I can take
Something desperately needs to change

I know I’m good enough
But that small voice gets louder by the day
The one that tells me I’m not good enough
I wish it would just go away
But until I get a chance to show my worth
I’m afraid I’ll keep questioning my role on this earth

Changing, Heartbreak, Loss, Mindfulness, people, Poetry, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-Love

The Trust is Broken

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Your actions speak louder than your words
You say one thing but do another
You keep making plans but you never follow through
Your words are full of lies and empty promises

Why should I take you at your word if it is always so fleeting?
What you say today does not affect your tomorrow
You change your mind on a whim
What you say one day means nothing the next
So tell me, why should I trust you ever again?

Why should I believe what you say?
Your words are empty, they’re meaningless
Forever changing, over-promising & under-delivering
I’ve caught onto your tricks, I’m onto your ways

I won’t let you deceive me any longer
Your word it doesn’t mean shit
You lack integrity, dependability
I need to learn to expect the least (from you)
You’re no longer someone I can depend on

I wish things were different
But we’ve changed
Gone opposite ways
I can no longer trust you
I can’t rely on you

I wish it weren’t so
But the bond is broken
Never to be restored
It hurts to say that
But I’m moving on

I’ve already let you go
It’s time you did the same
I’ll forever cherish what we once had
But it’s gone for good
No matter what you do, things will never be the same
The trust is broken
The partnership ended
Time to go our separate ways

Depression, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Knowledge, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Wellness, Writing

Just a Little Self-Awareness

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The past few years have given me plenty of time to reflect. No surprise there, considering my circumstances. But it’s revealed some hard truths that I’m having trouble reconciling. For a while now I feel like I’ve had a good understanding of who I am as a person. I’m the first person to admit that for most of my life I was severely lacking in the self-awareness department. But that changed once I started therapy. So much so that I feel like I was able to turn one of my greatest weaknesses into one of my greatest strengths. 

It seemed pretty cut and dry, so wasn’t something I questioned much… Until now. I’ve always been someone who spends a lot of time alone. As you would imagine for someone who’s as introverted as I am, much of the day is spent inside my head. Like many things in life, it’s a double-edged sword. When I lacked self-awareness and confidence it was a dark and dangerous place to reside. Negative thoughts circulated through my head without any sort of constructive release, which only made the rough moments even rougher. I was hard on myself and didn’t show myself any grace or give myself credit (I still don’t do enough of either, if I’m being honest). There was a lot of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. You know the story, I’ve been over it a number of times.

Therapy taught me how to use the time spent thinking in more productive ways. Which was extremely important. It would’ve been unreasonable to expect that I’d be able to stop myself from thinking so much, so best then to reframe my mindset instead. Rather than brooding and sulking, I began reflecting. This helped me develop the self-awareness that I had so severely lacked. Which in turn, allowed me to methodically evaluate each scenario and come up with a plan on how to move forward and improve. I believe that the self-awareness that I gained from that helped kickstart my mental health journey. 

This coupled with therapy allowed me to finally process past events in my life. Helped me let go of various traumas I was holding onto and move on from them. I was able to revisit past experiences and learn the lessons I was supposed to learn. Which surprised me at first—you wouldn’t think there’d be anything left to learn from something that had happened years or decades prior. But that’s not really true. If you keep ignoring your problems or keep running from adversity you’re only delaying the inevitable. There is only one realistic outcome for you with this approach: you doom yourself to repeating past mistakes and you give your issues room to fester and get worse. Until you learn your lesson, nothing is going to truly change or get better. So, at some point you will have to deal with the adversity head-on. It’ll hurt in the short-term, but you’ll be better off in the end. 

Unfortunately, for most of us, dealing with adversity directly is the harder thing to do. It’s actually relatively easy to take the “out of sight, out of mind” approach. It’s easy to pretend like things aren’t as bad as they are. It’s easy to lie to ourselves. To delude ourselves into believing that our issues aren’t so bad or don’t actually exist. It’s easy to just ignore everything that you don’t want to deal with. It might give us short-term relief, but these things will always come back to haunt us eventually—ignoring them didn’t magically make them disappear. So, the longer you delay, the more you’ll have to unpack. But instead of being able to deal with each small issue separately, in bite-sized pieces, it might hit you all at once like a ton of bricks. Not a fun time, to say the least. But there’s no one to blame but yourself. You have to live with the consequences of your actions (or inactions). Pointing the finger at others won’t do you any good. It might feel satisfying in the moment, but until there’s meaningful change within yourself there isn’t going to be any tangible progress or improvement. 

One sign of maturity is learning how to hold yourself accountable. It starts with owning up to your mistakes and having the awareness and humility to admit when you’re wrong. When I was a youngster I was a rather naughty kid. I wasn’t a bad egg per se, but my curiosity often got the better of me, and I liked testing boundaries and limits. On top of that, I wasn’t particularly sneaky nor was I a good liar. No surprise then that I often got caught. But more often than not, instead of owning up to it when my mom questioned me, I would either lie about it or feign ignorance. The last thing I wanted to do was take accountability. The most common phrases that came out of my mouth were, “I didn’t do it,” or “It was an accident.” She never believed me—and for good reason—so I always ended up with a worse punishment than if I had just told the truth. But did I learn my lesson? No I did not. The pattern repeated over and over and over again. It didn’t end until I was ten- or eleven-years-old when I decided to leave my naughty phase behind me once and for all. When I finally got tired of getting spanked. 

That was the first time in my life that I said, “enough is enough.” The first time I tried to make a conscious effort to change my behavior. And it worked for a while, but looking back on it now, I don’t think I had the right takeaway from all this. My motivation in doing this wasn’t centered around doing the right thing per se, but rather on avoiding punishment. The end result may have been the same, but the thought process was very different. Obviously, I was too young to understand the nuance, so this much only became clear to me in hindsight. If I had known the difference, would I have handled things differently? Maybe, maybe not. It’s not the most productive use of my time to speculate on this type of hypothetical situation. All I know is that this approach worked at first, and let me move onto the next phase of my life. It wasn’t until much later that maintaining this approach started to become a detriment. 

Either way, I didn’t learn how to truly hold myself accountable until much much later. My teenage years were filled with a lot of blame shifting, pity parties, and general anger at the world. I just didn’t have the awareness, willpower, or confidence to drill down to the root and find legitimate solutions for my issues. It was easier to play the victim than it was to be critical of myself or my behavior. This young version of me did not have the mental fortitude that I have now. I wasn’t a problem solver back then. I gave up too easily, and I kicked myself when I was down. I was already in a bad enough place psychologically that I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle any amount of self-evaluation even if I knew how to do it. No surprise then that all of this stunted my development. But I didn’t know any better. You live and you learn. 

Everything changed once I developed even an ounce of self-awareness. Obviously, therapy helped with that. But it’s not a magic cure-all. Whether you meet weekly or bi-weekly, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on your own. Your therapist won’t be there to hold your hand throughout the week. They can’t help you if you’re not willing to help yourself. At first, you may not have the tools necessary to do this on your own. They will develop over time. But you have to use them regularly to keep them sharp. All of this is done with your mental health in mind. Nothing is impossible as long as your mind is healthy. The going is much rougher when it’s not. Again, this is where having some self-awareness will come in handy. 

Things will get better from there. You just need to have faith, self-belief, and determination. Developing self-awareness should lead you down a natural progression in your mental health journey. And I guarantee you’ll learn plenty of things about yourself along the way. You’re stronger than you think you are. Not as broken. You’re more skilled and capable than you think you are. Not as helpless. You’re more knowledgable than you think you are. Not as inept. Once you learn how to show yourself grace, start cutting yourself some slack, you’ll quickly see how much you’ve grown and matured. You’ve become more put together than you even realized. It might feel sudden, but it didn’t happen overnight. 

Your experiences change and mold you whether or not you make a conscious effort to do so. I think deep down your mind, body, and soul know what you need, and will guide you in the right direction. I guess that’s what intuition and human instinct are. The seeds are there, we just need to grow and develop them. We need to learn how to listen to our inner voice—it’s wiser than we give it credit for. And that’s where reflection comes in. Once you become more self-aware, once you learn how to be accountable, once you humble yourself, you’ll be able to evaluate yourself in a more objective way. You want to be hopeful but you also have to be realistic. In order to do that you have to be honest with yourself and know where you stand. If your opinion of yourself is too low you’re at risk of undervaluing your worth, not giving yourself the credit you deserve. This can have dire consequences for your self-confidence. If you’re too high on yourself you risk setting yourself up for disappointment, because there’s a higher chance of you setting unreasonable and/or unreachable expectations (amongst other things). It’s imperative then that you try to find a middle ground. 

Spending time reflecting will help with that. You’ll become more in tune with who you are. You’ll have a better understanding of what you need. And it’ll show you a clearer picture of how you fit in with society. Which all connects back to the self-awareness thing. Ultimately, all of this ends up being a great way of holding yourself accountable—a desirable trait. Generally, we want others to think of us as having high moral character. What this consists of varies based on who you ask, but for the most part we tend to gravitate towards people that are dependable, loyal, and kind. We like people that have integrity, are honest, and are respectful. Some of these traits are already ingrained in us. Maybe they were a natural part of our core personality. Maybe they were taught to us by our parents or our teachers. Maybe they came about due to some other reason. But even if you possess some or all of these traits it doesn’t mean you can’t keep improving in that area. If you’re a kind person you can be even kinder. If you’re honest you can be more honest. If you’re dependable you can be more dependable. 

There is no upper limit. That means that self-improvement is a never-ending climb. But that’s what we do it for, isn’t it? We’re trying to be the best version of ourselves each and every day. It sounds daunting but it’s rewarding seeing how much you’ve grown since the last week/month/year. Every so often you’ll want to stop and smell the roses. You’ll want to enjoy the view during your climb. But at some point you have to continue on your journey—there’s so much more for you to see. And I think maybe we lose sight of that. We bask in the glory so much that we forget what we’re doing it for. I sure as hell have forgotten. When I started writing it was because I had stories I wanted to tell, insight I wanted to give. I wanted to help people the best way I knew how—through my writing. But in order to do that I needed to make incremental improvements both in my craft and in my psyche. I needed to work towards becoming a better human day by day. At some point, I forgot to do that. 

At some point I started smelling myself so much that I forgot how much farther along I needed to go. I forgot that there was still so much that I didn’t know and so much more for me to learn. I forgot that there was still so much more room for growth. I saw the improvements that I had made in my writing and I thought that that was enough. But it wasn’t. Yes it filled me with confidence, and justifiably so. But the improvements I had made were only in one area of my life. I had hyper-focused on one domain to the detriment of other domains. Becoming a better writer didn’t help me become a better human, friend, son, boyfriend, etc. It didn’t make me a more qualified job candidate. It didn’t make me a better worker. It didn’t help me earn an income. Writing was and is a hobby that brings me joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. But it’s nothing more, nothing less. I wish I would’ve realized this sooner. 

That way I wouldn’t have set everything aside to pursue a dream that’s not yet realistically attainable. Yes I still believe that I have the skill and talent to get to where I want to go—that self-belief does not waver. But at the end of the day, whether or not I get published isn’t totally within my control. I might be good enough, but I might not be lucky enough to get my big break. That’s just the reality of things. The odds are not in my favor. Intellectually, that’s something I’ve always known. But it wasn’t something that I wanted to accept. Instead, I had let my ego get the better of me. Confidence in one thing ballooned into confidence in all things. I took a concept that was nuanced and I made it black and white. 

What was meant to be two pursuits I had made into one—it was always supposed to be pursuit of a hobby and pursuit of a career. What was meant to be my side job I had made into my main one. What was meant to be my main one ended up being tossed aside. While I valued and appreciated the time off at first, it’s gone on for far too long. Whether or not I wanted to admit it, this was never going to be sustainable. If the goal of this sabbatical was to give me time to finish writing a book then I’ve failed miserably. If the goal was to give me space to raise the quality of my writing to an acceptable level then I accomplished that a long time ago. Either way, it’s run its course. I’m ready for my sabbatical to end, although I didn’t see it as a sabbatical at first. 

My one regret is that I did not react quicker. I refused to budge from the path that I had taken. I refused to open my eyes to my delusions. I should’ve started looking for a job a long time ago. Having a steady income would’ve better helped me navigate the ups and downs of my writing journey. I would’ve had something to fall back on if things didn’t go my way. I would’ve had a more solid foundation to build my confidence upon rather than depending on the ebbs and flows of my writing. But I’ve always been rigid and hard-headed. Even when I pivot I often pivot too late. If only reflection had shown me this. But the truth of the matter is, I wasn’t honest with myself. I wasn’t honest with my expectations. So reflection could only reveal so much… And now it feels late. It’s not too late, but it’s still late. Better late than never I guess.